


Ghosts in the Machine

by Pythia (Mythichistorian)



Series: Speaker to the Senses [1]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythichistorian/pseuds/Pythia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lt Boomer and Corporal Komma stumble upon alien artifacts not accounted for in the Galactica's manifest - and discover there are five inhabitants of the ship not listed amongst its crew ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published by AAA press, as a Zine, back in 1990. 
> 
> This means that it was written long before the new Galactica and the re-imagining of the cylons, so any (vague) similarities between this and the new BG disembodiment of personalities is pure coincidence. The Senses were originally inspired by the idea of dis-corporate crewmembers presented in Samuel Delany's 'Babel 17.' Well worth reading, if you haven't already done so!  
> Hopefully, this is, too.

They had found the ancient spaceship drifting in open space, its crew long dead, its power long since exhausted. Even the internal atmosphere had diffused from its metal prison over the aeons, leaving only a meagre whisper of gases drifting within the fragile hull. Fragile indeed, as the investigating warriors soon realised; even the strongest of metals can crystallise over time, and the hull of the vessel was no exception. Pressure against its darkened surface splintered it into a slow drift of dust, and only the fact that it drifted in the absent gravity between the stars could explain its tenuous hold of existence. They investigated nonetheless, Adama refusing to pass by the chance that it might have originated on Kobol. It wasn’t easy, the cautious team forced to drift through darkened corridors in bulky pressure suits, avoiding contact wherever they could. In the very heart of the drifting ship, less affected by the passage of time, they found equipment that appeared to be reasonably intact and decided to salvage it for further investigation. They brought back a number of strange and delicate artefacts, and abandoned the derelict to its lonely drifting. Shortly after that, the fleet was discovered by a Cylon patrol, and in the subsequent flight from their enemies the strange discoveries were stored and then forgotten, abandoned for the more immediately concerns of day to day survival ... 

* * *

"What did you say was in here?" The voice of Lieutenant Boomer drifted from behind the massive storage container, and Corporal Komma fought down the impulse to throw something at it. He had been quietly looking forward to the end of his shift, planning a comfortable evening cleaning the antique chrono that he had recently managed to add to his collection, when the Lieutenant had arrived in the middle of the computer section, scattering printouts in several directions. It appeared that Colonel Tigh had requisitioned certain items that were clearly recorded by the computer as being in one storage area, only to find that they were in fact somewhere else altogether. This had resulted in a huge uproar in which Tigh had accused the Head of Support Services of inefficiency and he, in turn, had laid the blame on the computer. Eventually Adama himself had interfered in the ‘discussion’ occupying his senior officers and suggested, quietly, that perhaps a random check between the storage chambers and the recorded data was in order. When Adama ‘suggests’ something in that tone of voice it becomes an order carved in steel; Tigh had called for the duty officer (who happened to be Lieutenant Boomer) and ‘requested’ that he find a volunteer and carry out a series of spot checks down in the storage and cargo levels. Komma, half-asleep in front of a long and distinctly uninteractive system check, hadn’t moved fast enough when the Lieutenant swept into the center; the three other technicians (all, he grumbled to himself, junior in rank) had quickly pleaded important duties, leaving the portly Corporal to accept his fate with patient grace. He had keyed the requested random sample, together with a more detailed listing in case it should be needed, and followed the impatient warrior down into the desolate bowels of the GALACTICA.

The Battlestar was a large and rambling ship, a city of metal containing a labyrinth of passages and chambers. Many of the storage areas could remain unvisited for sectars until some specific item was required. Even in the cramped and crowded conditions of the Fleet, the lower chambers of the GALACTICA were unpopulated and rarely visited; despite the need for living space, it was just not possible to release the storage chambers for other purposes, since the stores were needed, even if infrequently called upon. The Lieutenant and his reluctant assistant were faced with a mammoth and thankless task, climbing in and out of stacks of spares and equipment, checking random items against a catalogue prepared with even less enthusiasm by the original task force. Komma was already bristling at the idea of the data being inaccurate. He’d been part of the original team assembled after the destruction of the Colonies, and he was sure that the Colonel’s misplaced supplies had been the result of laziness on the part of the stores technician responsible for maintaining the update on the catalogue. He began to bristle even more as Boomer, his mind scarcely on the matter in hand, began to find reason for diversion, searching among the various items just for the sake of it, and slowly driving the normally patient Corporal to the end of his tether.

"It’s supposed to be empty." Komma answered the Lieutenant’s question through clenched teeth, wrestling with the sheets of printout and resisting the impulse to kick the boxes of ‘ladder rungs (100)’ that he was marking off on the manifest.

"Then why is it sealed?" The face of the GALACTICA’s second best known Lieutenant reappeared from around the container and regarded his companion with expectation.

"How the frak should I know?" Komma regretted the remark even as he said it. He wasn’t the type to indulge in insubordination, and he rather liked Lieutenant Boomer in normal circumstances. He sighed and looked contrite, which brought the first smile to Boomer’s face since they’d started on the whole affair.

"Getting to you too, huh, Komma? Cheer up - the Commander suggested the Colonel agree to a whole secton’s furlon for whoever got landed with this job. I didn’t mention it back there - thought it might get me the wrong sort of volunteer."

"A whole secton? For a few extra centars’ work? That I can live with."

"M’m. Me too. We’d better check this chamber out - everything else has matched the manifest so far, but I can’t see anyone sealing the door to an empty room."

Komma scrambled across the boxes and followed the warrior round behind the large cable container. Tucked away in a corner was a small door, an unobtrusive flicker of light on the panel beside it proclaiming it to be locked. Boomer was trying an assortment of combinations, to little avail. Eventually he cursed softly, drew his laser, and fired one short shot into the electronics. Komma winced as the charge slammed home. He knew the Lieutenant had orders to be thorough, but surely that was taking things a little too far!

Behind the door was a chamber almost large enough to hold a pair of Vipers, lit by the dim glow of standby lighting, and containing several strange and indeterminate shapes placed carefully against the walls. In the centre of the room was a cube, standing waist-high and flickering softly with faint internal lights.

"What the ...?" Boomer stepped into the room cautiously, eyeing the weird cube with suspicion. "Would you look at this?"

Komma looked. Small alarm bells had begun to ring at the back of his mind: something about a chamber being requisitioned by Wilker for the storage of alien artefacts. "Ah - do you think this should be here, Lieutenant?" he asked, watching as his companion peered curiously at one of the machines lined against the wall.

"How the frak should I know?" Boomer deadpanned in reply, turning to grin at the Corporal in the doorway. "I don’t think this belongs anywhere. Come and look at this."

Komma stepped into the room, then jumped as the automechanism slid the door shut behind him. The room was in semidarkness, the coloured lights in the cube brighter now the illumination from the outer chamber was extinguished. There was sound, too, a faint tinkle of tiny bells, like an extremely small mechanism working somewhere very close. Boomer bent over a strange device that looked vaguely like an armchair with its legs removed. The computertech edged his way around the central cube to join him, a wary eye on the lights within. If you looked sideways at it, just so, you could almost see images ...

"Komma!"

He jumped again, recalled to where he was with a suddenness that felt almost nauseating. "Lieutenant?" he queried, looking for his companion, and was surprised to find he had moved on to the next device.

"This shouldn’t have been left down here like this. Are you sure there’s nothing on the manifest about it?"

"Positive, Lieutenant. This whole section is supposed to contain nothing more than spares for the ship’s furniture. I guess someone was looking for an empty space to store this stuff and the computer threw this chamber out as the first available."

"Yeah." The dark-skinned warrior sighed, running an absent hand over the curved device in front of him. "That must be it. But why store something that isn’t inert? This stuff is drawing power from somewhere - whatever it is. Ouch!" His hand drew back as sparks spat between his skin and the dark surface beneath it. His elbow caught the man behind him hard in the stomach, driving Komma back a step in reaction.

A hand, a hip brushed the quietly sparkling cube. There should have been resistance, should have been a hard edge, a sharp corner meeting flesh; instead there was a nothingness, a cold sensation of absence enveloping, engulfing. He cried out in alarm, was pulled in, swallowed by a sudden intensity that seized and imprisoned him. Boomer turned, alerted by that brief, choked-off cry, in time to see Komma merge into the cube, step through into an inky blackness. There was a flare of brilliant light that blinded him. When he could see again, blinking to clear the afterimages that danced in his eyes, there was no-one else in the room.

"Komma? Komma!" He stared in total disbelief at the faintly pulsing cube in front of him. Blue and silver light chased across its features, interlaced with sparks of red. He reached out a hand, then withdrew it just as cautiously. He really didn’t believe what he’d just seen, couldn’t accept the reality of it. One moment the man had been there, the next ...

As he stood there, totally nonplussed, something stirred within the cube, something fought for tangibility. A hand reached, grasping, through the seeming solidness of the surface. Almost without thinking, he caught it, held it, pulled as it pulled. There was another blinding flare of light, a rushing sensation of movement towards him. Then he was standing there, his arms full of a startlingly beautiful woman, who appeared to be wearing Komma’s uniform.

* * *

There was no up and no down. He was floating and falling, all at the same time. He opened his eyes carefully, the merest crack, then crammed them shut, appalled, terrified. A brief glimpse was enough: a nightmare view of fire and darkness, a vision of hades or heaven; either one was unendurable. He shivered, curled into a ball, and fought for inner control. He had fallen - no, he had been pulled, down, through, into ... the memory refused to make sense, his situation irreconcilable with the moments that had preceded it.

Muscles tensed as something, someone, touched his shoulder; a hand ran over his skin, caressed the curve of his arm. Distantly he heard the barest of giggles, a sound which registered as curious, then startling. The voice made him jump.

"There’s no need to be afraid, you know. It’s quite fun when you get used to it."

"Wh - what?" The sound of her words was an orchestra of chimes, a sound he would forever hear in his dreams. Slowly he opened his eyes a second time, meeting silver sparks of light in the depths of hers. "Who ...?" He breathed the question, as though even the slightest disturbance would shatter the vision before him.

She laughed, a shimmer of bells, danced away from him, twisting, turning, as though she hung suspended in liquid light. She was a shape and a shadow, a darkness rimmed with starlight, her hair an impossible shimmer of silver drifting around her darkened features. Behind her, lines of fire sped in seeming chaos, wrapping them in a framework of colour that seemed to go on forever. Komma huddled into himself, unwilling to cope with the unreality he faced. The world around him contained no familiar points of reference, and the girl, dancing on air with no respect for gravity or direction, seemed only to magnify the impossibility of the situation. He was definitely floating, or falling - the two seemed synonymous here - suspended in a landscape of light and darkness, a network woven from strands of fire against which she moved, shadow and starlight ...

A rush of sound behind him made him jump. He turned, startled, only to set himself spinning, tumbling over and over without control. Hands held him, spun with him, laughed as they lazily spiralled together; another figure in his landscape, gold and amber, equally beautiful, equally strange.

"Welcome, stranger." Her voice was lover, a murmur of horns and thunder, laughing softly as she brought them to a halt. "Pay no heed to Sound. She was first, and remembers least what it is to come here."

He was caught in her eyes, the image of her laughter cast in bronze relief, his own reflection mocking him from the amber depths. His own reflection! An image of a stranger, a tawny lion of a man rimmed in echoes of sunsets. Yet the face was his own, familiar features twisted in puzzled confusion.

"Where is - here?"

"Where you were." Silver bells and higher harmonies; the creature called Sound drifting at his shoulder, smiling, sympathetic, reassuring. "Show him, Sight. You have the way."

"When the others come."

"Others?" Things had ceased to make sense a long time ago, and the thought that there might be other creatures such as these ethereal, exquisite creations, was less surprising than it might have been a few moments before. Already his mind had accepted the warmth of their touching him, the shiver of energy that each contact sent through him. It no longer seemed important to consider the embarrassment of seeming nakedness, overwhelmed as it was by incomprehension. Sound rested her chin on his shoulder, wrapped a languid arm around his waist, the fall of her hair raising myriad tiny sparks across his back. Sight still held his other arm, hanging before him the way stars hang in the vastness of space.

A flare of light along the gathering of the network, a mutter of sound and energy, and there were three, the third a fragile thing of curve and colour, silver greens and misted blues. She arrived feet upended, hair spread out in a halo of shimmering fibres, and slowly twisted in a balletic curve until she sat on nothing at all, resting her back against the side of his leg.

"Scent I am, and sent I can be," she breathed at him, head tilted back over his hip, eyes a sparkle of emeralds. Looking down, he missed the final gathering; when he looked up, the fourth was already there, warm browns and polished blacks, no less beautiful than his companions.

"And Savour makes four," Sound giggled in his ear. "Now we are complete. Show him, Sight, so that we can show him. Help him understand."

The amber eyes smiled, the gold-touched lips parted, smiled. Still holding his hand, Sight spun them all sideways, moved out of the line of his vision, and he saw ...

The cube was a pool of white light shot through with colour, centrepiece to the chamber in which they gathered. Beyond it, images moved as though obscured by shadows. Two figures, defined more by the light that shone within them than by the shapes that held it, one warm and scarlet, the other purple, calm, both dim and intangible in this world of light and energy. Yet he could see them, and, when Sound laid gentle kisses against his cheek, hear them too, distantly, their voices harsh and discordant after the breathless chimes of his company ...

* * *

"Just who in hades are you?" Boomer demanded of the unexpected stranger. He had stood her up and held her at arms’ length, unsure if he could cope with the sensual impact of her presence. She had curves in all the right places, and then some; she was strikingly beautiful, and she oozed energy as though she had enough to give away without thinking about it.

"Sensation," she answered him, a voice full of resonance and warmth. She had coal black eyes, he realised, eyes in which ruby sparks drifted like tiny flareflies.

"You said it, lady." He swallowed hard, trying to regain a grip on the situation. "But where did you come from - and where in hades is Corporal Komma?"

She tilted her head to one side, watching him with innocent curiosity, as though his concern were incomprehensible to her. Perhaps it was. "Within." She smiled, looking him up and down with interest. "I chose to come without."

"I noticed," he growled, almost absently. It was definitely Komma’s uniform she was wearing; it didn’t fit the same, but it was his. The problem was that Boomer suspected that the body inside it might be his as well: a thought which worried him for several very good reasons. "Look - I don’t understand any of this. One moment I’m in this room with a bored and harassed Corporal by the name of Komma, the next there’s this beautiful brunette wearing his uniform standing in front of me and telling me she’s a sensation ..."

"No," she laughed. "I AM Sensation. It is what I am called in the net. I have no other name now. You sent us your companion. I merely borrowed his form to repay the compliment. It has been so long since any have shared the net with us, and so long since any of us have come without, to the world of texture and mass. I mean no harm."

"No harm - ! Now, hang on a centon. You just said you borrowed his form \- are you telling me you ARE Komma? You sure don’t look like him."

She thought that one over, then slowly nodded her head. "The flesh is only a vessel, shaped by the spirit within. HE is within the net, and his flesh holds my spirit for the time we share. But his is his form. There is no other."

Boomer’s hand dropped to his laser, dropped away to his side. What good would threatening to shoot her do? She’d just admitted she didn’t own the flesh she was wearing ... "So you steal someone’s body - for what purpose? Why?"

"Not steal." Her voice sounded hurt. "Not exactly ... When I return to the net, then he can return to this flesh. It will reshape to his spirit and take no harm from it."

"Right." Boomer set his shoulders and tried to assume a businesslike tone. "Then you can just go back to your ‘net’ and let Komma come back where he belongs. Right now."

"Oh, no." She seemed amused for some reason. "I can’t do that."

His hand crept back to the butt of his laser. He couldn’t risk damaging her, but he might just be able to intimidate her into co-operating. "You just said ..."

"Yes. I can go back. But not yet. Not before the transfer system is fully repowered."

Reflexively, the warrior glanced at the cube. It pulsed as before, but now he could see that the sparkle of lights within it was slower, less intense. He sighed and stared at his companion in total complexity. "And how long will that take?"

She was amused. Her face lit up with a broad and very becoming grin. "A centar or two. Long enough."

"Long enough for what?" He was really suspicious now, eyeing her with puzzled caution, not sure where events were leading him.

"Oh ..." She shrugged. "For a meal, things like that. Physical experience. I have been discorporate for a long time. I have to touch as much as possible, take those memories back into the net, share them."

"Share - you mean there’s more of you in there?"

Her laugh was seductive; it sent shivers down his spine. "Not in there! In the net. Everywhere. That’s just a gateway. We occupy the same space as you do."

He looked behind him; he couldn’t help it. Apart from the dimly looming shadows of the unfamiliar equipment, there was nothing else in the room. Certainly nobody else. He looked back at her and frowned. "But there are others?"

"Of course." She moved sideways and sat on the edge of the cube, subtly reinforcing her stated inability to re-enter it. "You don’t think I would abandon your friend to the net alone, do you? They welcome the company. They will look after him."

That hadn’t been the main reason for his query, but it was reassuring to hear nonetheless. He leaned back against the wall, watching her, and wondered what he should do. His first impulse was to take her to the Commander, make a full report and let someone else decide what happened next. Except ... well, it had sort of been his fault that Komma had been swallowed by this transfer process, and, now he thought about it, the report he would have to make would sound quite fantastic, and then what if others did come out while he was away, and no-one would know about them, and ... frak, why did she have to smile at him like that?!

"You are confused," she murmured gently, slipping off her perch to slink closer. Slink. There was no other word for it. It was hard to remember that the body she was wearing belonged to a stockily built Corporal who was both decidedly male and hardly what Boomer would describe as attractive. Not to him, anyway. She was neither male, nor unattractive, now that he came to think about it.

"Ah ... yeah, I’m confused. I don’t know what to do with you. I ought to report this to someone ..."

"Don’t do that." Her advice was gentle. "I intend no harm to this vessel. It is my home now, as well as yours. Others would want to question me, investigate me. All I want is a little company before I return to where I belong. I couldn’t tell them the how of things, nor the why. I only know the what. And they might not let me return."

"No," he agreed faintly. She was right, of course. If he reported this there’d be a full-scale science team in this chamber before anyone could count to ten. Wilker would demand the right to probe the artefacts that he had probably abandoned here in the first place. He’d probably treat this exquisite creature as just another piece of machinery to be examined, and without an understanding of the processes involved he might just ensure that Komma would never be recovered from wherever he had gone. Boomer wasn’t sure he’d like to be responsible for that. He rather like the unassuming computertech, whose innocent gullibility had provided the perfect touch for Starbuck’s conniving charm, and whose dedication to duty and patient acceptance of his lot was almost inspiring, in a quiet way. He wasn’t a Viper pilot, true, but not everyone could aspire to that brilliant existence, and he was a warrior, a fellow Galactican. Boomer couldn’t just abandon him to fate without trying to do something about it himself.

"Okay," he breathed, aware of her closeness, the warmth of her next to him, "maybe my report can wait until I get Komma back. I mean, you don’t look like a danger to the ship, and if I take you into my custody then you won’t do anyone else any harm ... But we’re staying right here until this thing gets back to full power. I’m not leaving this equipment, or you, unattended for a micron."

"Fine," she said softly. "I don’t mind what we do. As long as it’s together ..."

* * *

Voices faded, the vision dissipated into faint images of light moving against the glory of the net. He knew what it was now, where he was, in a strange kind of way. He was still aboard the GALACTICA, precisely where he had been before he had entered the alien cube. Only now he was part of it in a way he couldn’t quite understand. The net, the interweaving of fire that made up his landscape: that was the passage of power through the ship’s systems, each channel of light an active transmission that carried it. The ghostly shadows were the warrior and the creature that was Sensation: he was seeing their inner energy rather than the cloak of flesh that contained it. He had become a ghost in a world of ghosts, a spirit liberated from its prison to experience another kind of perception.

"Your mind interprets what it sees as best it can," Savour told him quietly, in warm and rumbling tones. "Within the net, true experience is felt and not explained. This is a world of impression and sensation, not logic and laws. If it feels right, it happens. We do not work, we dance. We do not consider, we do. We are part of it, in harmony with it, and we maintain that harmony in instinctive fashion, saving thought for appreciation and experience."

"Experience." Sound echoed the word in his ear, and then giggled. "I like you."

"Oh." He considered her silver eyes, trying to comprehend what had happened to him. Everything had happened so fast, everything was so overwhelming ... "I - I think I like you, too."

"Don’t think." Scent slid up his side and shook an electric shimmer of hair over his shoulder. "Feel."

"While she is gone ..." Sight drifted in front of him, "you are Sensation." So saying, she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the forehead. Sparks of light exploded into his mind and he gasped, the shock akin to the one gained by standing in a cold turboshower - unexpected, neither painful or pleasurable, but a little of both together.

"Please ..." He felt suddenly overwhelmed by their presences, unwilling to let his situation overwhelm him completely. "This is too much - I - I’m not sure ..." His feelings were in total conflict; the warm sensibility of their touch stirred things within him he had no idea how to surrender to, and that embarrassed him, tightened knots of fear and tension in his stomach. He had never felt at ease around women at the best of times, always awkward, tongue-tied by a fear of rejection. He liked to watch them from a distance, admire beauty for beauty’s sake, but if one ever stopped to pass the time of day he would stammer and blush and curse himself for a fool. He had female friends, of course he had, but not many, and most of those were fellow workers, relationships established by the requirements of common industry, intellectual rather than emotional friendships; if he had ever felt attracted on a more personal level, he had never had the courage to mention it. Now here he was, closely surrounded by three very attractive, almost unreal creatures, who felt no inhibition in their sharing, their closeness, and that coupled with the sheer need to cope with the unexpected change in his environment, was almost too much to bear. The worst of it was that he felt guilty about it. They really seemed to like him, and he wanted to respond - hades, they made him feel that he wanted to be really alive, as though he had never really experienced anything before - but ... but he didn’t know how, couldn’t relax into the sensual undertones that washed over him. He was drowning, and he didn’t know how to swim.

"Later." Scent brushed his cheek with her fingertips, smiled, and was gone, leaving a cooling warmth on his skin where she had been.

"Free yourself." Sight blinked eyes of gold and amber, gathered herself up, stretched, and vanished upwards in a blaze of light,, leaving afterimages that showered him with tiny sparks.

"I always liked you," Sound giggled from behind him. "You have warmth in your soul." He turned, but she too was gone, echoes of bells and cymbals. He hung, suspended in the net, alone except for Savour, who sat in empty air and considered him with thoughtful intent.

"We embarrass you." The dark-skinned figure rose and moved towards him with easy grace. "Our apologies for that. It is not so easy to remember how it is without. Many cannot cope with the directness of the light within. Here there are no secrets, no self-delusions. The spirit reveals itself; the colours of the soul are clear. It is easy to hide from the truth when enclosed by flesh; impossible when the truth is all you have."

"I don’t understand," Komma sighed, wrapping his arms around himself in unconscious withdrawal. "This place - all of you - I don’t belong here. I’m not like you. I’m nothing special, nothing at all."

Savour smiled, shook his head slowly. "You have lied to yourself for so long you believe it. Why should we like you when you do not like yourself, that is what you wonder. But you have more in you than that, else you would not be here at all." He extended his hand, offering it in friendship, warm red chasing across purple-brown skin. He was full of colour, like his companions, outlined in light of his own making. Komma hesitated, then found courage and uncurled an arm to offer his own hand in return. He halted there, hand half offered, for the first time seeing his own skin in the revealing light of the net. No, not the light of the net: his own light, his own inner self shining through. Orange fire played across bronzed flesh, tinged with an unhealthy grey, as though the light were dampened, muddied out with conflicting shades.

"Fear, uncertainty, tension." Savour laid his hand in the hesitant palm, curled strong fingers into a warm and reassuring grip. "The colours are easy to read if you know how. But under it, strength and vitality, an intuitive and sensitive soul. We know you all, you who live within the net and yet without. We watch you, watch over you. Each soul tells its own story. The colours are glorious to see."

Komma looked again at the ghostly images that moved together on the far side of the chamber: red and gold shimmering with hints of other brightness, blues and greens tinged with shades of red and brown. Through Savour’s touch he began to understand a little of what he could see. The colours were the play of feeling and emotion, a summation of character and mood; harmonised and clear where the inner self was balanced, conflicting and muddied by negative feeling and conflicting emotion. Right now, for instance, the Lieutenant, who was so clearly the Lieutenant despite an inability to distinguish physical features, was torn by opposing desires, the calm, rational side of him darkened by worry, his self responding to the sensual warmth of Sensation by a surge of passion. And then there was Sensation herself, brighter, less shattered by rainbows, her inner self laughing, uninhibited, clearly desiring the hesitant warrior, amused at his inner conflict. She moved closer; their auras touched and flared together with brilliant sparks of red. Suddenly embarrassed, Komma turned away, looking at Savour with new eyes.

"People are complicated things." His companion was smiling at him. "They hide themselves from themselves as well as each other. That may come to something - it may not. Let me show you more of our world, and you may understand a little more of your own."

Komma nodded slowly, looking down at his hands where they grasped each other, his own colours brighter as his inner tension relaxed, Savour’s strength feeding his own. "How?" he asked. "Do we walk, or fly?"

"Neither," the spirit before him laughed. "We simply go!" And they went, a breathless movement like water poured from one vessel to another, a heady rush spinning them from resolution through dissolution and back again. When everything sorted itself out again and the exhilaration passed, allowing him to breathe again, Komma was somewhere else entirely: a jewel-encrusted cave, woven from intricate pulses of light through which ghosts danced. Only he knew it, recognised the place with the intuition of instinct. This was home - the spartan calmness of the computer centre revealed for the scene of endless activity that it truly was. Savour released his hand, but he scarcely noticed as he moved like a fish along the banks of equipment. Ordered, regimented activity pulsed beneath their surfaces, combining together to create an impression of eternal motion, liquid light flexing and shifting as the power passed from terminal to memory to storage and back again. Without thinking, he plunged his hand beneath that fluid surface, feeling the flow of energy pass through him, insistent and irresistible. The data it carried shot undemanded into his mind - something about system statuses and memory allocations. He withdrew his hand in wonder and looked at it, seeing the images of the impact scattering across his skin like a shower of tiny stars. Then he grinned and plunged his hand again, stirring through the liquid information, trawling for scattered data he could identify. Savour laughed and dived after his passage, catching his shoulders and holding him back from a headlong plunge.

"Don’t," the warm voice rumbled, "they’ll notice. Besides, you can get lost in there, and there is so much to show you yet."

"That’s how, isn’t it?" Komma had found an enthusiasm that outmatched the overwhelming nature of his new world. "That’s how you know so much about us. You can read our files, assimilate our knowledge ... what do you mean, they’ll notice?"

"We are part of the net. We can affect it as well as move through it. You can feel the pattern of the information, but you must be discreet, otherwise you will add to or change the pattern in some way. That will be noticeable to them." He indicated the shimmer of ghostly lights that clustered around a complex interweaving of light on one side of the room.

Komma frowned, momentarily missing the image because of the intensity of colour, and then perception shifted and he realised what and who he was looking at. Halcyon was immersed in the interactive simulation that was currently challenging the skill of all the games players aboard the GALACTICA. The rest of the duty techs were gathered behind him, urging him on as he neared the level of the record score. Their enthusiasm was a bright shifting of overlapping colours, his halo a shimmer of scarlet and pink as he poured his energy into the fast-moving system. Behind him Kalith radiated envy, overlaying his normal bluish melancholy. It was strange how easy it was to recognise each familiar individual from the shifting patterns of light and colour, how clear the underlying tensions of the workplace became.

"They shouldn’t be doing that," Komma muttered absently. "Captain Psion will kill them if he catches them doing that on duty."

"Then perhaps you should do something," Savour suggested softly. "I believe he comes."

He looked up, looked through - there were no such simple barriers as metal walls or doors within the net - and saw, moving towards the glittering centre with cold inevitability, the angled, hard edges of the infamous Captain Psion, a man few people liked, mainly because he seemed to hate everybody. It was clear now, the brooding anger he carried, a dark red stain laid over a grey soul. Komma shivered involuntarily, seeing truly for the first time the ruin the man had made of himself, eaten up with self-hate and distrust. He was a cold, hard man, and he would take great delight in punishing the young technicians clustered around the game; he would do it simply for the sake of it, not for any notions of duty or responsibility, making himself more enemies and growing more bitter with it. Komma was afraid of him, always made a point of making himself as unobtrusive as possible in his presence. He looked once on the glowing enthusiasm of the group, again at the approaching storm, and made a quick decision. Leaving Savour drifting above the consoles, he turned and dived into the active terminal.

For a moment the impact of power and data together was almost too much to bear; then he had what he needed, and Halcyon’s winning ship disintegrated into an electronic storm as Cylon attack ships impacted against it. The game ended, the group relaxed and scattered, so that when Psion loomed through the doorway it was to find an industrious group of technicians engaged on their allotted tasks. He glowered at them for a thoughtful moment, then moved on through the centre and into the duty office. You could feel the universal sigh of relief that went after him.

Komma was shivering, drained by what he had done. He felt disorientated, shocked by the overload of power he had experienced. Savour’s arm was a warm and comforting weight around his shoulders; he leaned into the offered strength and slowly recovered himself.

"You do to much for them," Savour was saying, watching the busy technicians go about their business. "He takes advantage of it."

"Halcyon? Komma identified the man in question, shrugged self-consciously. "He needs looking after. He’s young."

Savour laughed, hugged him with affection. "Young and enthusiastic, inconsiderate and selfish. Let him fall on his face occasionally. That way he will appreciate you more when you do help him. Don’t let that streak of self-interest take too firm a root, or he will become manipulative for the sake of it, and have no concern for the thoughts or feelings of others."

Komma frowned, watching the ghost that he had befriended betray the colours of his selfishness in the rainbow that surrounded him. Savour was right: there was no concealment in the net, no cloak to cover a man’s true self.

"How do you know," he asked plaintively, "so much about me? I know about US, about the data flow and the ship; I mean, me personally. About Halcyon and - well - everything."

Savour loosened his hold on tense shoulders, offering his hand again. "We all have our chosen people," he explained good-naturedly. "Sight has watched you, and we share. We always share." He smiled. "There are those who stand out among the shadows that walk our world. Those we watch over, learn about. We do not have favourite places, as you do; the net is the net and is complete wherever we are. But we do have favourite people, those who can inspire, comfort or amuse us with their company. Our beloved, if you like."

Komma blushed a little, a flare of darker orange over a bronze skin. Savour was not using the word as a trite explanation; he meant it. In the net, the warrior was beginning to understand, there was only honesty of feeling; and friendship and love were only differing degrees of the same thing.

"Would you like to see?" Savour was asking, tactfully ignoring the ripple of colour. "Would you like to share?"

Komma turned and looked again at the crystal cave that was his workplace, at the bustling colours of his fellow technicians. Never again would this place seem cold and unfeeling; never again would he take for granted the life that moved around him every moment of every day.

"Yes," he breathed, finally knowing, finally wanting what this world had to offer him: the deeper understanding of his own; the deeper understanding of himself. "I want to see. I want to share."

Laughing, Savour caught his hand and they were gone, leaving the familiar ghosts unaware of their passing.


	2. Chapter 2

"Maybe you can tell me about the rest of this stuff." Boomer stepped away from the distracting closeness of his companion and indicated the contents of the room with a wave of his hand. The creature called Sensation watched him with amusement.

"It’s just things," she said, tossing her long hair back from her face and pulling at the awkward fit of her uniform. Most of it doesn’t work anyway."

Boomer was trying to consider her with rational detachment, a difficult task considering the effect her presence was having on him. She would have that effect on practically anyone, he had decided after a while. It wasn’t just that she was attractive, which she most certainly was, or even the way her behaviour seemed untouched by normal human inhibition. It was the raw, powerful sensuality which she projected, her savouring of every moment, every breath. She was so alive, so vital that she took your breath away just being there. But she was a puzzle, and a disturbing one at that. If that were Komma’s body she occupied, the physiological changes the process had wrought were staggering ones: she was unquestionably female, from her shapely bare feet to the cascade of glorious red hair that spilled below her shoulders. Bare feet? He looked, and realised that she had kicked off what must have been uncomfortable boots. They lay abandoned at the junction of floor and wall behind her. He turned his mind back to his previous line of thought with an effort.

"So, what did they used to do?"

She shrugged. "This and that. That’s a music unit, only the input device is missing. That’s a nutrient generator without base stocks to act on. That’s a library interface with no library to interface to ... Do you really want to know?"

"Probably not," he admitted, disappointed at the list of items she described. The thought of an alien technology had intrigued him, but it seemed there was little here that would reveal any strange and wonderful secrets. "Tell me about the cube."

"All right." She leaned back against the wall and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "It’s a - a gateway. Into the net. It’s self-contained, and it draws its power from within, so placed anywhere within an active structure it will charge itself for use. It can also act as a storage chamber. Uncharged, it can contain the personalities that inhabit the net for an indefinite period. We found that out ...," she smiled distantly, remembering, "when the old net was damaged. We drifted into sleep, and when we woke we were here. I like it here. More people. More power. More feeling!" And she stretched up, arching her back like a catlet. Boomer swallowed hard. Underneath the ill-fitting uniform she was all curves and muscles; in all the right places, too.

"Yeah. Right," he managed. "But what’s it for?"

She looked at him absently, absorbed by the feel of the hard surface at her back. "The net? The net is. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here. Oh!" She suddenly realised what he meant. "You mean us! We are the senses within the net. We look after it. To us it is a living thing. Look ..." She peeled herself away from the wall and in one smooth movement lifted her shirt over her head. Boomer blinked, opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out. "This flesh," she went on, unconcerned, "consists of skin and bone and muscle. Within it, touching every part of it, is the vital energy of the blood. And within that are protective agents that heal and prevent damage. That is what we are, what we do. We cannot act directly upon what lies without, but within the flow of energy that is the net we do what we can - divert power that may overload systems, cause minor failures to prevent major breakdown, assist the passage of power, maintain the integrity of the whole."

Her skin was dusty and smooth, her breasts upright and sculptured in the dimness of the emergency lighting; her hair spilled over shoulders carved from ivory, cascaded like liquid fire across the perfection of her skin. Boomer’s mouth was dry, uncertainty plucking at him as physical desire conflicted with intellectual awareness. It wasn’t possible, something screamed at the back of his mind, for this model of female perfection to be sculpted from the same flesh as the stocky Corporal that she claimed it belonged to. And yet - if you looked hard, really hard, you could trace the genetic echo of Komma’s genial features within the shapely precision of her face. Concentrate on that, he thought, floundering out of comprehensions’ depth, analyse the points of comparison: she was a little taller, perhaps, but probably the same weight, even if redistributed slightly. Stand them side by side and you’d probably see the resemblance clearly. _Don’t be ridiculous,_ the same small voice insisted, _how could you stand them together when they are one and the same?_

She saw him staring, looked down at herself with interest, reaching to cup one perfect breast in an equally perfect hand. "It is a fine flesh, this." She smiled at him. "Strong and healthy."

"I ..." His voice came out cracked. He swallowed, licked dry lips, and tried again. "I’m sure Komma will be glad to hear it."

She watched him, her eyes bright, unfathomable. "Do I disturb you, Lieutenant?" Her voice was warm and mellow. "Or may I call you Boomer?"

Something snapped inside the normally patient warrior. Confused and uncertain, he had allowed this creature to influence him, the sexual tension she generated distracting him from the realities of the situation. Surely she was toying with him, her act of innocence concealing more nefarious intent, her disarming openness a deliberate ploy of some kind. He closed the gap between them, caught her by her upper arms. "Now, look here, young lady. I don’t know who told you my name, or what you’re playing at, but ..." He broke off, seeing the way she accepted his sudden anger, calm, almost appreciative. There was no guile in those flame-speckled eyes, no concealment, only a disturbing honesty as they considered his confusion, reflected the image of his concern. "Dammit," he breathed, "what in hades do you want?"

She smiled slowly, affectionately, her eyes holding his in a steady gaze. Her arms lifted, her hands, gentle, touching his neck, on his face. "You," she whispered, drawing him down towards her, lifting her lips to his.

They kissed, a contact of unexpected gentleness, a moment full of possibilities. He resisted only momentarily. At the back of his mind that small voice protested once, and was stilled; stilled by the fires that she lit within him, by the taste and the touch of her. His hands released their grip only to draw her closer; he answered that gentle kiss with passion, and after that it was too late to reconsider anything ...

* * *

The journey took no longer, left him just as breathless and exhilarated. He stood - no, hung - in an open gridwork of light and darkness, the shape of chamber and passageway clearly defined, the light less intent in quiet storerooms, complex and interwoven within the living areas. For once he thought to look down, and the gridwork of the net dropped away beneath him, layer upon layer of light, an intricate weaving of shape and form, fluid and alive. Brief panic surged within him at the sensation of nothingness beneath his feet; never keen on open spaces at the best of times, this insubstantiality was disturbing to a man who had lived all his life within the secure confines of walls and ceilings. And floors.

Savour was there beside him, responsive to his moment of unease, a comforting hand on his shoulder, a reassuring smile on his lips. "These are some of the living quarters," he said conspiratorially. "We are looking for a friend."

The grid seemed almost deserted, empty of the brilliant ghosts of colour save for a few, quiet and dimmed by sleep, that drifted alone in the secluded confines of their rooms. They moved, comfortably together, through a series of chambers, the definition of the net bearing little resemblance to the physical configuration of the area. Komma wasn’t even sure where they were within the sprawling confines of the ship. There were living quarters scattered throughout the GALACTICA, a precaution against accident or attack that ensured the distribution of vital personnel should major damage or destruction ensue. On-duty pilots slept in the squadrons’ ready-rooms; off duty they were spread throughout the ship. Officers shared access corridors with lowly technicians, a healthy mix of grade and rank on every level. They could be in almost any of the designated living areas, even Komma’s own.

"Here." Savour drew him to a halt, then downwards, so that they sank through what must have been floor. Below them, curled together in harmonised intimacy, two ghosts were sleeping, the colours of their selves mingled and overlapping. Komma knew them - knew them instantly, and felt a surge of embarrassment at finding them so privately involved. He had long admired Cassiopeia from a comfortable distance, perceiving, as he did now, her gentleness and sensitivity as uncommon virtues. In the world of the net she was a bright flutter of orange and gold and red, just like a flame, full of warmth and reassurance. The barest hint of grey-blue touched her, an intimation of melancholy hidden deep within. It contrasted sharply with the crimson of her companion; shadings of red and brown, tinted a little with a hint of rose. Strength and vitality, an earthy sensuality touched with a little self-love, unmistakably Starbuck, sharing a moment of time with the women he clearly loved and yet could not commit himself to.

"I watch her a lot," Savour was saying. She has a very giving nature. She heals with her heart as well as her hands."

Komma nodded slowly, feeling he had intruded on something very private. Their intimacy disturbed him. Within the net the truth was revealed with unequivocal honesty, and the uncertain nature of their relationship was revealed as clearly as the physical energy they had so recently shared. The sight both embarrassed and attracted him. He felt ashamed at such opportunistic voyeurism, and glanced at Savour to try to understand why he felt no such awkwardness at their intrusion. The creature of the net was watching the sleeping pair with such gentleness and affection that Komma felt even more ashamed at his ambiguity of feeling. It suddenly occurred to him just how different this existence was compared to the complex games of human emotion, half-truths and subtle lies that marred interrelationships in his normal world. Savour felt only delight in the intimacy before him; in a world where every emotion was written clearly for anyone to see and understand there was no room for misunderstanding, only empathy. There could be no embarrassment at depth of feeling, since there could be no dishonesty, no ambiguity in relationships.

"He is one of Sensation’s people," the spirit was saying softly. "Lieutenant Boomer is another. That is why she chose to go without in your place. To share." He laughed softly at his companion’s expression, drew him gently away from the gathered intimacy of the sleeping ghosts. "I’m sorry." His apology came from the depths of him, a ripple of colour revealing it. "I forget how alone each one of you is. Everything is shared, within. Don’t be afraid of your feelings; they are part of you. If you lie to yourself, how can you be honest with others?"

"I don’t know." Komma’s voice was hesitant. He’d never been very good at expressing himself, too self-conscious, too lacking in self-confidence to find the way. "I’d never thought of it before."

"Sometimes it is easier not to," Savour told him gently. "But once you have learned how, the pleasure of being is addictive. It is the moment that matters, since every moment is one and the same. Even in defeat, adversity or pain there is learning, growth." He smiled, an affectionate grin. "Let us show you something else."

There was, Komma was beginning to realise, something reassuring about the presence of these - well, presences. Somehow they managed to give the impression of delighted children, and yet they projected a maturity that belonged in the oldest and wisest of mankind. Beside them he was no more than a child, floundering in an experience that left him breathless and confused. He had no idea how to cope in this world, what was to become of him here; but he trusted them, wanted, more than anything, to be worthy of them. He held out his hand to his guide, expecting him to take it. Savour laughed, bent his head and kissed it instead. Then he caught his companion’s arm and threw him bodily into the net, tumbling him over and over in an exhilaration of speed and light.

He fell, twisting and turning, through patterns of colour and sound, caught up on a confusion of image and impression. He lost all sense of direction, spinning and falling, gathering speed, a shiver of sparks impacting on his skin as he tumbled through the lines of power, tumbled and flew, flew straight into the arms of Scent, who held him, laughing.

It seemed a long time before he felt able to do more than just stay there, curled into her embrace, trembling, breathless and a little dizzy.

"Too far, too fast?" she queried with amusement as he recovered himself.

He nodded briefly, still too short of breath to talk, and uncurled enough to find himself sitting beside her in another gridwork of living quarters.

"No matter." Her voice was soft, soothing. "You have already come too far to turn back. Never regret the right commitments, or you will never commit to anything at all." She stretched, catletlike, rolling over behind him to rest her chin on his shoulder with amicable intimacy. "Sometimes HE regrets too much - a minor fault in one so strong."

Komma had been too bewildered by his journey to take immediate notice of his surroundings. Now he looked and, looking, understood. In front of him was the angular definition of an office, the sculptured power within an active console twisting up to spill into the working light it supported. And seated at that shimmering structure was a ghost filled with silver, lit from within by soft blues and harmonic greens.

"Captain Apollo," he breathed in wondering recognition.

The figure before him, fired with a spiritual strength that burned like a beacon in the net, was beautiful, the closest he had yet seen to match the fire and life of his current guides. Yet he was also touched by a shimmer of darkness: regret and sorrow, the heaviness of duty and responsibility, marked and marred the brilliance of his light. Komma was beginning to understand a little of what he had been shown: Boomer, the intellectual, balancing loyalty and responsibility against a desire to know; Starbuck, the sensualist, intent on enjoying life to its full; Cassiopeia, giving help to those in need without expecting a reward; now Apollo, filled with moral strength and striving towards an image of perfection that was always a reach beyond him. Savour had been right. The colours were glorious ones.

"He would understand the net," Scent was saying in his ear, "but it would not be his answer. He has touched many truths and not always recognised them as such. Sometimes it hurts, to see him strive so hard, when he already has what he needs."

"This journey has been hard on him." Komma turned to share the thought with emerald eyes, finding a reflection of brilliant silver deep within them. "He sets an example for others to follow; we’ve all lost so much, and yet he has endured his personal tragedies, too … you know all about it, don’t you? There’s no need for me to explain."

"I know - yes, I do. But you understand, and your perception does you credit."

Komma looked back at the working warrior and frowned a little in confusion. "It all seems much clearer here," he said. "And yet - all I’m getting to understand is how little I _do_ understand. I guess people frighten me. I know he does."

Scent’s laugh was gentle, soft. "That’s not fear, that’s admiration - worship, even. It’s Psion that you fear, friend. But welcome to our world, indeed; if you know that you do not know, then you have taken the first great step upon the stairway to yourself. It is ignorance of ignorance that keeps men from true knowledge. But do not try to understand; learn to experience first. Without that you cannot interpret anything. These are matters for the heart and soul, not for the mind. Watch now; enjoy. Share." Her hand was a warmth on his shoulder, her presence an electric shiver across his back where her skin rested on his. He leaned into her weight a little, less wary of her presence than he had been before, and tried to do what she asked.

The warrior at the desk worked on, oblivious to his watchers, absorbed in something he found both tedious and necessary. Unexpectedly a moment of light flared in the gridwork; a door opened, closed, in a moment of power demanded. Through it tumbled a smaller ghost bearing all the colours of the rainbow and one or two more, a riot of shifting emotions, currently dominated by expectation. Behind him - for Komma recognised the child as Apollo’s adopted son - came a strange creature woven from the sparkling fabric of the net, fluid, beautiful. It took a micron or two for the watching technician to equate this brilliantly living thing with the clumsy daggit drone that normally accompanied Boxey, and he nearly missed the heartstopping moment of pure love that shone when the two ghosts embraced. Nearly, but not quite. It was light and it was colour, but it washed over the watchers in a wave of almost physical intensity, and Komma found he could not breathe for the glory of it. Scent wrapped her arms around his shoulders, poured a little of it back into him from the other side; he wanted to be that child, that man, held together by the strength of their giving, unconditional, undemanding. Then Scent had propelled him upwards, into the net, and the moment was left behind in a rush of colour and movement.

* * *

Lips touched, tasted, caressed; hands slid across silken skin, arousing and aroused, sharing a warmth and passion in moments of desire. She was musk and nectar to his tongue, fire to his loins. Her hair spilled over his shoulders as she laid sweet kisses to his face and throat, each touch a spark of pleasure, each moment driving rational thought further and further from his mind. Hands as soft as flitterwings slipped beneath his shirt, eased it from his shoulders; fingers played briefly at his waist, slid fabric from his hips. His head went back with a moan as she traced her kisses lower, her breath gentle on his inflamed manhood, her lips teasingly close, her hands upon his thighs, his hips. Aching with desire he caressed her shoulders, drew her close, and she rose again, a warmth of energy against his skin. Their lips met again; his hands cupped her breasts, his head bent to savour them. Sensuously she slid from the remaining fabric that enclosed her and his hands followed, down the curve of her stomach, across the warmth of her inner thighs. For a moment memory surfaced with distant concern; an expectation unfulfilled as his fingers tangled in silken curls, slid to encounter waiting warmth within. Her arms enfolded him, pulled him down and sideways, into an unquestioned softness. Again his mouth found the texture of her breasts, feeling her respond to his caresses; he moved against silk and satin, was engulfed by her warmth. Together they moved in shared ecstasy, the moment a blend of mutual pleasure that burned hotter and hotter until it was almost unbearable. Then it overtook them, exploded within them, and left them still and spent in each other’s arms.

Sensation smiled, an affectionate, knowing smile. Then, with gentle touches, she set about the pleasurable business of arousing her partner all over again.

* * *

He drifted upwards through a spiral of light, a patterning of power, listening to the sounds of the net. It hummed and sang to itself, an eternal hymn of life, full of the ringing of distant bells, sweet and harmonic. If he let himself relax into it, float in the drifting currents, drink in the subtle scents of it, incense and life, taste the air, warm and heady, he could start to feel the life of it, know the movement within it: textures he couldn’t place, sensations he couldn’t quite recognise. He stretched with the pleasure of it, and a hand reached down and enfolded his, drew him up, out of the enveloping experience and into a warm embrace.

"Don’t reach too far without us," Sight advised softly, letting him go. "You might get lost."

Komma studied her amber eyes, finding them full of gentle laughter. Beside her easy grace, beside all of them, he felt like an awkward daggit pup, clumsy and uncoordinated. Sighing, he looked around him, wondering where he was. For a moment nothing focused; then he realised what he was looking at, and the vision took his breath away. If the computer section had been an enchanted cavern, the ridge of the GALACTICA was a cathedral, a vaulted chamber carved from liquid fire and filled with fountains of light and glory. Ghosts of all colours swirled among them, but the eye was drawn to a figure that outshone them all, the shifting shades of his aura paled by the pure white light that filled him. Beside him, a second ghost: subtle shades of orchid and purple, somehow enhanced and not diminished by the presence of the man next to him. The young computertech had always felt overawed by Commander Adama; now he knew why. The man’s light dominated his domain, certain, determined, yet not lacking in warmth or sensitivity. His compassion, his inner strength, shone through, revealing the burden of his command, heavy but endurable, sustaining rather than destroying him. Beside him Colonel Tigh was a tower of implacable strength, capable, attentive to detail, impatient only with inefficiency and waste. Between them was a bond of friendship and trust forged by long association. Komma stared and then looked away, ashamed, feeling as though the light before him revealed every inadequacy, every weakness in his soul. Sight smiled softly, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders with understanding intimacy.

"You shine no less brightly, beloved." Her voice was gentle. "It takes many lifetimes to achieve such inner strength and understanding. Even within the net we know better than to strive beyond our reach. There is virtue in many natures, and not all will come to such brilliance as this. The net strips away all falsehoods, reveals truth for what it is. Do not be ashamed of yourself, or strive to become what you are not. Your strength lies in mediation, not leadership, in your gentleness and consideration." Gently she turned him back so that he was looking at the heart of the place. "Do not be afraid to see," she insisted. "Look hard, and learn. This is the soul, the spirit that moves your world. Understand that and you will come to understand many lesser things with ease."

He looked, seeing past the brilliance of the light to the man who contained it. A lonely man, isolated by the necessities of his command, inspired by a vision of the future, driven by a compassion and responsibility that encompassed every individual in the fleet. The burden he carried was heavy, the need not to fail its demands the burning force that motivated him beyond all other things. There was no room in Adama’s world for acceptance of failure; only constant self-doubt as he tested his chosen path to his limits, and beyond.

"How can he endure it?" Komma asked, a hint of anguish in his voice.

"Because he has to. Because the love and support of his people sustain him. Because, ultimately, he believes what he does is the only thing to do. When the shadow walked among you, then his light was dimmed for a little while. But in the end his faith in his people’s need rekindled it."

"The shadow …" The warrior shivered at the darkness that had crossed Sight’s colours when she mentioned it. "You mean Count Iblis?"

"I mean the shadow. There are no delusions in the net. We knew what he was; and those who came after him, too, so bright they blinded us." She smiled, dismissing the past without regret for it. "But do not let one light obscure the others; I come here for many things. Look again."

Her hand brushed his cheek, passed briefly across his eyes. The colours did not fade; they solidified. He was looking at the Bridge with more normal vision, the light of the net shining through and around each working warrior, outlining them in jewel-like colour. In the midst of it Adama still shone, aloof and apart from the administrative bustle of his command. Beside him Tigh was occupied with little things, signing duty orders brought by his officers, listening to the everyday problems that running a ship the size of the GALACTICA inevitably brought to light. Watching them and the Bridge crew that surrounded them, Komma began to appreciate the co-ordination that governed and controlled the running of the ship. Tigh wasn’t left with the minor irritating details of personnel and support; it was his role to ensure that such things didn’t distract Adama from the more weighty matters that determined the fortunes of the fleet. Under the Colonel, the Bridge officers pursued their duty with the ease of long practice and the knowledge that their lives were in responsible hands. They filtered away the even more minor things that Tigh didn’t have time for. Others watched the universe beyond the fragile confines of the hull: Rigel, intent on the snatched conversations between ships, conducting the traffic that swarmed and crawled about them with unconscious skill; Omega, constantly aware of the space around them, correcting their course and guiding them according to Adama’s will; from seeming chaos, the bustle of the Bridge folded down into well-ordered layers, each one supporting, complementing the next. And over it all, Adama: a white light of inspiration, the calm at the eye of the hurricane.

"I never knew," the watching technician breathed in delight. "All this - all this life!"

"Just one moment in a wider breath." His companion drew her hand away, brightening the solid shadows into the iridescent ghosts of the net. "Without others below them, this ordering would be futile and a sham. Each individual has a place in the patterning of your lives; each duty, however small, leads back to this heart and out again, dependent, constantly assured and reassured. It is an orchestra of sound and colour that your Commander conducts, a glorious interwoven tapestry in which the colours of each make up the music of the whole."

"So much," Komma murmured in awe, hushed, as though his voice could shatter or disturb the glories around him. "So many things I never knew." He turned to her, a shimmering of gold against the jewelled surfaces around them. "So much beauty in ordinary things."

She smiled. "So much more to see." And she pushed him away with an affectionate touch, tipping him over, back into the spinning of the net. Over and over he fell, no longer fearful of the precipitate journey, absorbing the light that twisted around him, the colours and the light, the shiver of power and the exhilaration of it, until he was quite dizzy and drunk on the experience. Sound tumbled in to join him, the two of them falling and spinning together in a laughter of breathless speed. Then they had arrived, in a world of curtained colour, drapes of shimmering light sweeping a crystalled floor.

"Where - where are we?" he managed, recovering his breath. She giggled at his gasps, twirled away from him in a spin of silver hair.

"Beta landing bay," she called back as she went.

"What?!" He stared about himself in total confusion. He avoided the landing bays as much as he could, enduring their vast opennesses only when he was forced to. He had no love of their echoing depths; the space was bad enough, but to look out of it into the universe beyond was unbearable. He would hurry into and out of shuttles with his head down and his eyes firmly fixed on solid walls, fighting rising panic and only feeling safe once the access hatches were firmly shut behind him. But this place of drifting draperies, this ballroom hung with curtains of light …?

He hurried after Sound, following her through one waiting drape to become wrapped in the next. Beyond it was a shuttle, a crouching, jewelled insect; next to that a Viper, an impatient dragon’s head, glittered in deadly menace. She stood \- no, drifted, feet absently pointed downwards in unconscious grace - in front of the fighting craft, watching the ghosts that swarmed around it. Komma moved to join her, passing through the whisper of the curtains as they tingled against his skin. The figures clustered before them were relaxed and casual, engineers starting the routine task of transporting the ship from the landing grid back to the launch cradles. The Viper’s pilot stood apart from his ship, awaiting the arrival of comrades from his patrol. Sergeant Jolly was a solid warmth of colour in the net, loyal, dependable, steadfast. He was joined by the excitable streak of Greenbean, full of relief at the successful conclusion of another routine patrol. Lastly was Giles, occupied by the thought of some scheme or other, enthusiasm bubbling out of him: three contrasting warriors, their colours matched in a harmonising whole. Sound was listening to their conversation with a slightly indulgent smile; she caught Komma’s hand and pulled him to her side in time to hear the tail end of the discussion: something about vignon and some young ladies on the HESTIA who just loved warriors …

Sound laughed as Giles dragged the other two away, leaving the engineers good-naturedly calling after them to be careful. "There is so much life to be shared," she said, twisting away without releasing his hand so that they proceeded to spin together across the curtained floor. "So much richness in the process of being."

"Aren’t you ever still?" he questioned, laughing at the impromptu waltz that they shared, spiralling through curtain after curtain.

"Sometimes," she answered, bringing them both to a halt with a suddenness that would have made him dizzy in the real world. "Sometimes, when one of them goes out and does not come back. They have gone beyond us then, into the light and the colours where we cannot follow. Not yet." She smiled sympathetically at the sadness that crept into his expression at the thought of comrades lost, and leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek. Then she laughed and span away, her voice a shiver of indescribable glory. "Catch me!" she teased, unwilling or unable to dwell on sadness. She disappeared into the gathered curtains, reappearing in momentary glimpses as they swirled about her. They were, Komma had finally realised, the layer upon layer of forcefields that maintained the atmospheric visibility of the bay while allowing free passage to the ships and shuttles it served. It was a reassuring thought, finally to see those protective layers normally invisible to the human eye. In the net they had a solidity of existence that before he could only take on trust.

Suddenly realising he had lost sight of his guide he started after her, gaining confidence in the art of movement within the net, a ballet of drift and flying, driven by the whole body. He had never learned to swim, water being a scarce commodity on his homeworld and under strict control on the Battlestar, but he knew this was better. Much better. He remembered the time the gravity motors had failed after an attack, leaving his section floundering against nothing in the absence of direction. Then he had felt awkward, clumsy, unable to do much more than edge a cautious way to the safety of gravity beyond the affected area, hugging equipment banks for security and feeling faintly nauseous. Not now. Now he had but to think and he flew, had but to twist the barest amount and he would turn and dance in lazy abandon. This was what it was like to fly, unimpeded by restraint, freed from the fear of falling, unrestricted by anything other than yourself.

Sound spiralled around him suddenly, giggling. Beside her, he was clumsy, his mastery incomplete. Taken by the game he launched himself after her; together they dived through curtain and colour, dodged and twisted in a delight of the moment. Laughing, she eluded him, led him a merry dance past occupied ghosts and jewellike structures in the net. Laughing, he followed her, for one of the few times in his life unselfconscious in the pursuit of pure enjoyment. He was relaxed and happy, content in the experience of the moment, unconcerned about who or what he was other than simply being himself. He even forgot about where he was; until, with unexpected and yet inevitable progress, they dived through one final curtain - and looked beyond the net.

Imagine this: that you were born and raised in an underground mining colony under constant Cylon attack, where the surface was a dangerous place to be and the open sky a continual threat; where the environment above ground was savage and hostile, requiring environment suits for even the shortest excursion. Imagine that as a result you cannot feel safe under an open sky, even on a world where the air is fresh and the threat of attack is distant; that you seek safety and security in the cramped and confined spaces of military service, enclosed by technology and metalled bulkheads, nurtured by artificial environments and the ability to see the limits of your world.

Imagine that, and then imagine this: that before you, untouched and unimpeded by manmade constructs, lies infinity; the universe spread out in all its glory. Not the insipid light that human eyes can perceive, but all of it, a boiling sea of energy pierced by the screaming spectrum of the stars; colours that have no names, patterns that defy perception, distances without end stretch before you, surround you, engulf you, overwhelm you.

Imagine that, and you will know a little of the terror that seized Komma then, caught up in the power of the infinite and brought face to face with eternity.

* * *

Across the length and breadth of the GALACTICA systems fluctuated, power failed momentarily, lights dimmed, circuit breakers blew. On the Bridge a whole series of monitors scrambled, died, then returned to life before their operators could register more than a moment’s protest. In the central computer core emergency power backups kicked in, programmes hiccoughed, open data files scrambled. In Life Centre diagnostic equipment registered impossible readings, autodispensers churned capsules of drugs, dressing and sterilised fluids onto the floor. In the launch bay sparks flew from instrument panels, fuel lines jerked and bucked under unseen stresses, and one Viper launched itself, scattering the engineers who were preparing it and scaring the life out of its pilot, who scarcely had time to close his cockpit and power his helmet before he was tumbling, unpowered, in open space. Across the entire ship the wave of disruption ran, a few brief microns of chaos followed by a return to normality.

Deep in the bowels of the ship, low-level emergency lighting flickered, flared, then settled again. Sensation sat up, a shiver running across her skin.

Beside her, Boomer lifted a lazy arm and pulled her down again, into the warmth of his body, into the curve of his side. "It’s nothing," he murmured. "Just a power pulse. They happen all the time."

"M’m." She wasn’t sure. Then she looked at him and smiled. "Well," she decided, "whatever it is, I’m sure it’s being taken care of."

* * *

He was curled into a tight ball of pain and terror, tense and shivering. There were arms around him, embracing him with comforting touch, hands that soothed and eased the cramping of his muscles. Gently they held him, silent but reassuring, warmth pouring into him with insistent strength. Slowly, so slowly that he never knew how long he had been there, caught in the tightness of his own terror, he relaxed into their support, let their power flow into him. Gradually he unwound from the tight ball of huddled anxiety, unwound into their embrace.

They held him in a circle of reassurance, reinforced their support by insistent closeness; their warmth was all about him, bodies pressed against him on all sides, shutting out the threatening impressions of space. For a long time there was nothing but that sense of comfort. They held him, gentled him while he shook the reaction out of his soul; they eased the tightness out of his tensed existence, cradled him in unconditional love. Eventually he became aware of their individualities, submerged in the encompassment of the whole: Savour’s strength at his back, Sight’s warmth at one side, Scent’s calmness at the other, and Sound’s gentle presence before him. He opened his eyes, meeting hers lit with the power of her soul: not the little he had seen, echoes of her inner self written with casual honesty across her existence, but all of it, the inner strength and intensity that possessed the dwellers in the net. Like a nightwing caught in a candleflame, all his insignificant terrors withered and burned away before the brilliance of that light. He was cradled in it, light so bright, colours so intense that beyond them there was only darkness and a whimpering memory of another light that had lit forever the innermost recesses of himself. Without thought, without hesitation, he surrendered himself to the insistence of the moment and let in their brilliance.

They flowed into him, Sound, Sight, Scent and Savour, enfolding him in a shiver of sharing that transcended physical realities. He was one of them, part of them, touched by the ecstasies of their existence, made whole at last. Lovers strive to achieve that perfect union, reach to share such intimate togetherness. Few achieve it, hampered by the demands of the physical, distracted by the no less pleasurable moments of the flesh. But here there were no such restraints, no lies to hide behind. He touched them, shared their souls, knew their shape and sense, tumbled through their memories. For a moment that went on forever he and they were one, lifted to heights he had never imagined, caught in the pure joy of being, of life itself. Then - oh, then, when the moment was become unbearable and he knew that there could be no more - THEN they gave him their world. Out into the net, perception flowing along lines of power, impressions of souls moving unaware around them. He heard it, everything, every sound that made up the life of his ship, saw a thousand things in intimate detail, knew the scents, the savours of everything. Together, linked, one, they slipped into the fabric of the net and became it; experienced the pulse of life and power that made their world and possessed the Battlestar, slipping through infinity, a living, conscious creature of the stars.


	3. Chapter 3

"Don’t," Boomer murmured in faint and indolent protest as she blew teasingly across his skin. He no longer knew how long he had been in this place, only that he was surfeited and satiated, loved and beloved with passion and pleasure as never before. It had been as though she had known every little desire that his body harboured, had sought them out and gratified them, every one. And in return they had danced together in mutual passion, her flesh responding to his touch as she guided his hands, his lips, to those places that pleasured her the most. Gently she had taught him, teased him, shared with him the secrets of a woman’s body that before had been guesswork and fumbling fingers in the dark. Never again would he hold a woman in his arms without thinking of these short centons; never again would he allow his own passions to blind him to his partner’s. Sensation had shown him how the sharing of mutual pleasure enhanced the moment, raised it to heights that he had not thought possible.

"You weren’t a Socialator before …?" he had asked, unable to formulate the nature of his companion into words. She had laughed softly.

"I am Sensation," she had said, as if it explained everything. Perhaps it did, at that.

"You certainly are," he had echoed, with a sigh of contentment. Now he lay relaxed and drowsy as she gently massaged his skin with her fingertips; her light touch spiralled him into distant and contented dreams.

"Sleep," she murmured softly, laying flitterwing kisses on his face and eyelids. "Sleep and dream, beloved. Remember me, and what we have shared. If we never touch again, this time will be ours forever. Sleep now, and regret nothing. I will be watching over you."

He smiled distantly, drifting into warm darkness, and, secure in her presence, let sleep steal over him.

He woke cold. Cold, where before there had been warm skin against his, the comfort of another body sharing his space. Now there was nothing but recycled air where she had been, the absence of her weight on his arm, the curve of her body left in the support beside him. He felt bleary and drained; his muscle ached and his stomach told him he was ravenous, but deep inside him there was a warmth he would never lose, a memory to cherish forever.

Tiredly he groaned and rolled onto his side, lifting himself up on a weary elbow. There he stopped, taking in the room before him and realising, truly realising for the first time, jut what it was he had done.

Komma sat on the edge of the cube, watching him with a gentle and slightly embarrassed smile. He was dressed, which meant he had recovered his uniform, which Boomer vaguely remembered being strewn about the place, and he was quite definitely the stocky, genial figure that he had always been. There was a moment of sheer, embarrassed silence, and then Boomer rolled onto his back and groaned again.

"Oh, my lords," he announced to the ceiling. "Now what am I supposed to say?"

Much to the Lieutenant’s surprise, Komma laughed softly at the question. "How about - are you all right, Corporal?" he suggested. "Or even - did she get back safely?"

"Did she …?" Boomer sat up and stared at his companion with suspicion. "Just how much do you know about what’s been going on?"

Komma smiled, watching with unsurprised ability as the colours of anxiety flickered through the warrior’s aura. He hadn’t known, until the moment that he drew real and not imaginary air into his lungs, just how much the dwellers in the net had gifted him. Without, as he now thought of the real world, the colours were diffuse and less easy to read; but they were there, with a little concentration, a barely visible halo of light and shade that wrapped itself around the man in front of him, revealing his inner self and the emotions that played beneath the façade of flesh.

"Enough," he answered, wanting to be tactful. Then, with revealing honesty, "She shared everything with me. That’s how it is in the net."

"Everything?" Boomer accepted the statement with a distinct sinking feeling. The full realisation of just exactly what ‘everything’ meant was coming to him with embarrassing detail. He and Sensation … "Everything?!"

Komma nodded slowly, unsure of how he was supposed to react. He could understand the warrior’s embarrassment, but after the net it didn’t seem as important as it might have done before. "She thought," he stated carefully, unwilling to make the Lieutenant feel any worse than he did already, "that I was entitled to know what she had done with my flesh while she wore it …" He trailed off, watching as Boomer threw his hands over his face and groaned from the bottom of his heart.

"Lords of Kobol, what have I done? What have I done?!

"Enjoyed yourself?"

Abruptly Boomer was sitting up and glaring at the technician, reacting with anger to a situation that he was not able to cope with. "What the hades has that got to do with it? Dammit, man, how can you sit there, knowing …?" He broke off, staring at his companion with hostility, quivering with inner tension. Komma sighed.

"I can’t change what happened." Then, softly, he added, "I wouldn’t want to. Lieutenant - why are you so angry? Because of what you did, or because I know what you did? Either way, it doesn’t matter." He smiled wryly. "I mean, I know I’m hardly your type, but - well, Sensation’s hardly me, is she? And you shared with her. I got the experience second-hand, so to speak. I never imagined," he added, half to himself, still caught up in what he had shared within the net, "how it would be - for a woman. Different."

Boomer continued to glare, but with some of the heat taken out of it. Komma was right. Neither of them could change what had been. And what was it that he felt so bad about, anyway? He wasn’t a member of some obscure Gemon cult to believe that there was anything wrong with physical passion between two members of the same sex, however much his preferences tended towards the female persuasion. Persuasion? Hades, that body had been decidedly female when he had made love to it. And he didn’t regret that, not for one micron. Perhaps it was just the thought of it - of the intimacy he now shared with the man before him, a man who not a couple of centars before had been little more than a passing acquaintance, a colleague, not a friend. They had shared- what had they shared? Boomer stared at Komma where he sat, his face betraying a concern and sensitivity that revealed hidden depths beneath an unassuming façade. What had he done, these strange centars past? While Boomer made free with his flesh - where had HE been?

"She said …" The Lieutenant’s voice was strangely defensive, "that there were more like her -wherever she came from. Did you meet them?"

There was no dishonesty in the smile that lit the Corporal’s face at the question \- no, at the memory. It came from deep within him and was an expression of wry pleasure, of experiences he could never explain and yet would cherish forever.

"Oh, yes. There were four of them. They looked after me."

It might have been the smile that convinced him. For a moment the two of them had hovered on the edge of decision, poised on the brink of where the events that had been might take them. It could have been to enmity where neither would forgive the other, one for what he had done, the other for knowing it. But the nature of their experiences, the creatures they had shared them with, the natures of the men themselves, all spoke against it. Boomer quietly realised that the only way to survive this situation was to understand it, accept it, gain from it. And the only way to do that was to make enforced companionship into the basis for something more permanent; to make this man his friend.

"Four of them. Like her?" Boomer let his face twist into a wry memory of Sensation, a smile, if he had known, not unlike the one he had just seen. "You lucky bastard."

Komma eyed him carefully, assessing the intent behind the statement, seeing the acceptance that had underlain the initial anger. Then he grinned, colouring a little as he did so. "I guess you could say that. But you didn’t do too badly yourself, Lieutenant."

"No. And the name’s Boomer, remember I don’t think formality is called for at a time like this. Pass me my uniform, would you? I’m getting cold sitting here."

"Sure." Komma got to his feet and started to look around for the scattered components of the discarded uniform.

Boomer, having realised that he was sitting in the strange piece of equipment that had resembled an armchair without legs and now resembled a sculptured couch, the surface contouring itself to his weight as he moved, climbed wearily to his feet. He ached with tiredness, the good tiredness that comes with exercise. Slowly he stretched, easing muscles that felt indolent and relaxed.

"Say, Komma," he asked, suddenly realising that, while he had indulged in unfamiliar pleasures, his companion had experienced something quite unlike anything he had known before, "are you okay? I mean - what happened to you? Not an everyday experience, was it?"

"Hardly." Komma dumped the pile of assorted fabric and materials onto the couch and smiled happily at the warrior’s concern. The memory of the net and the creatures within it was a warm glow deep inside him, the gift they had given him helping to add to a new perspective on his world. "I don’t think I could explain it. It’s different in there - and yet, somehow it’s the same; just more honest, I suppose. I’m fine, I think. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt better in my life."

They stood face to face at this point, Boomer registering with unsurprise that Komma was slightly shorter than Sensation had been in the same flesh. It was awkward, remembering that earlier intimacy, to stand so close, knowing that the man also remembered it, wondering how to react to his presence.

"I wonder," Komma murmured, realising the need to break the awkward silence and finding it difficult to be his normal self-conscious self in the company of a man he now knew so intimately, "how much I could get telling certain female warriors about how you like to …"

"Komma!" Boomer’s voice was horrified. He felt so uncomfortable in the situation that the easy, relaxed remark was almost shocking; the comfortable relationship of lovers assumed by a stranger. Then it came home to him. In a sense that was what they were, or had been, at any rate. "You wouldn’t, would you?"

"Nah." The man grinned, then looked at him frankly. "I couldn’t discuss things like that with a stranger. Besides, I’ve never been able to say more than two words to a good-looking woman before my tongue ties itself in knots." He paused, thinking about it. "Maybe I could now. After I knew them for a while. Maybe."

"Maybe." Boomer echoed the remark with sudden affection. You couldn’t be angry with Komma for long, he realised. There was no harm in him at all, no forcefulness or expectation. "You and I had better be honest with each other, you know. Considering …"

"M’m." The Corporal stared at the Lieutenant for a long centon.

"Friends?" Boomer offered eventually, extending his hand. Hesitantly Komma took it, curled his fingers around it, remembering. Their eyes met, and then they laughed and the pilot drew the technician into a brotherly hug, no longer afraid of the physical contact, finding only undemanding comradeship in it.

"Oof," Boomer protested as they parted. "You’ve got a hug like a Caprican ursus."

"Sorry."

"Don’t be. It’s reassuring. If you’d hugged like Sensation I’d be worried."

Komma thought about that and then laughed softly, understandingly. "Yeah. I guess you would, at that."

Boomer shooed him away, bending to collect his underwear, and started to dress. "We," he considered, turning his mind to further things, "are in one hades of a mess, you know."

"We are?" Komma had moved to collect the long-abandoned manifest, frowning with absent annoyance at the fact that the topmost sheet had folded over on itself when it had been dropped to the floor.

"Uh-huh. You just think a micron. This will have to be reported. And Sagan knows how I’m gonna manage that."

The Corporal thought - a long and careful consideration that allowed Boomer to finish shrugging into his shirt and start on his boots. "Don’t," he advised eventually.

"What? Don’t report it? Komma, we have to!"

"Why?" His hand brushed the surface of the cube gently, almost affectionately. He looked across at his companion with innocent, disturbingly honest eyes. "Lieutenant \- I mean, Boomer," he corrected himself with a half-smile, "you think for a micron - even if we could report it and be taken seriously - what that would mean. Apart from the possibility of the Colonel hauling you over the coals for not raising the alarm the micron I disappeared, that is."

"M’m." Boomer frowned at his second boot. "I’d been thinking about that."

"Well, think about what would follow. Doctor Wilker down here, for a start, trying to fathom the workings of the gate, probably disrupting its settings, or something. And you and me - me, mostly - medical testing, concentrated debriefing, having to explain everything …" He tailed off, seeing the look his companion was giving him, seeing too the doubt that coloured the aura about him.

"You’re asking me to put personal consideration before duty." Boomer’s voice started stern, then lost the emphasis as he added, "And it’s beginning to sound like a good idea." He sighed and reached to pick up his holstered laser. "I don’t know, Komma. I really don’t. You’re right - I should have hauled Sensation up to the Bridge and made my report the centon that you were swallowed by the gate, only I didn’t because I judged, at the time, that that might place you in jeopardy. I think the Commander would accept that. Trouble is, I don’t think he’d accept an explanation for my subsequent behaviour. ANY explanation."

Komma shook his head. "I don’t think you can explain the Senses," he remarked, a little sadly. "Only experience them."

"Right. And then, how are we going to prove what happened? Short of you going back there, in front of witnesses. It’s beginning to look impossible to ME, and I went through it! You know," Boomer continued thoughtfully, "if Wilker did start poking around in here, he might damage something. Hurt her, maybe. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that. Komma …" He was suddenly decisive. "Would you say, in your honest opinion, that Sensation and her \- associates - were in any way a danger to this ship or its crew?"

"Of course not." The answer was indignant. "They need the ship \- it’s as much their home as it is ours. It IS the net. They protect it, not threaten it. And as for the crew …" Komma thought of brightly-coloured ghosts, of life and emotion open to be read with understanding and affection; of the Bridge and the white light at its heart; of the spirits that had shown and shared with him the glory of their existence; and he smiled, a distant, gentle smile. "They watch over us. Feel for us. They would not harm us."

Boomer considered him for a moment, struck by the underlying reverence in his voice. Whatever Komma had experienced in those few short centons, it had affected him deeply; there was a subtle expression of strength in his manner that spoke of an inner change, a shift not in character but in soul. It was hard to isolate, impossible to identify, but it was there. "Well, in that case - since this situation represents no apparent threat to the wellbeing of the GALACTICA, nor does this equipment cause any drain on our resources, I hardly think the matter needs reporting. Do you?"

"Only to my immediate superior officer - sir."

Boomer grinned. "Right. Consider it reported, Corporal. Now …" He looked thoughtfully around the room. "Where were we when we were so rudely interrupted?"

Ah …" Komma dropped his eyes to the clipboard in his hand. "Three-quarters of the way through the manifest check. Next on the list is metosealant."

"M’m." Boomer’s eyes had lingered on the support couch, slowly reassuming its armchair shape now it had no weight resting on it. His mind slipped easily into the memory of her, warmth and softness under his hands, the silkiness of her skin, the sweetness of her mouth. She had left a warmth within him, a lingering contentment that would sustain him. Recalling himself to the present with difficulty, he looked up to meet the eyes that watched him with affectionate understanding. "Don’t just stand there, mister," he snapped brightly. "We have work to do!"

* * *

They resealed the door as they left, a business requiring Boomer’s skill in electronics and the use of Komma’s ever-present toolkit, since the warrior had damaged the lock when he had opened it earlier. The advantage of it was, Boomer had pointed out as he wrestled with the circuitry, that no-one else would be able to open the door on a casual basis, even if they wanted to. It would require either a knowledge of the coded lock he was applying or a stubborn-headed warrior with a laser to get through it. Komma had watched thoughtfully, one skilled technician admiring the work of another. It was not until he was nearly finished that Boomer realised that the computertech could probably have made a much neater job of it than he had, and apologised. Komma had laughed, an acknowledgement of his new friend’s nature; it was inevitable that he should think of doing it himself, a consequence of spending too much time in the company of Viper pilots whose skills were many but rarely included the technical wizardry needed for the job at hand. Besides, as Komma had pointed out in his self-effacing way, Boomer was probably much quicker at throwing together a makeshift job than he was. His tools were those of a craftsman, and he’d have probably spent far too much time concentrating on the intricacies of the device. Boomer had eyed him narrowly for a micron, trying to decide whether he was being sarcastic or not. It hadn’t sounded like it. Then he’d laughed, and coded in the new combination of the lock. They had stood there for a while, looking at the finality of the closed door and at each other, knowing that with the sealing of the door they had taken an irrevocable step. Then they had turned away, back to the humdrum matters of the task in hand. Neither of them spoke again of what they had experienced, but they worked with companionable ease, joking over trivial things and reinforcing an undemanding friendship.

They finished the manifest check almost without noticing the passage of time; when they reported to the Bridge it was to find that they had been absent for several centars. Tigh received the report with a frown, noting that the manifest was, in the main, as accurate as Support Services claimed it to be. He had been on duty too long, and was feeling it. Adama wandered over to find if the matter had been resolved, noted thoughtfully that the two warriors were looking a little tired, and wandered away again, absorbed in some other problem that had arisen in the meantime. Boomer threw an amused glance in Komma’s direction, only to find him wide-eyed and overwhelmed by his surroundings. To the quiet technician, who rarely came to the Bridge anyway, the impact of the GALACTICA’s control centre on his newly gifted senses was such as to swamp him. He had been privileged enough to see this place from the net, to touch, however briefly, its glory. He had not expected to find it there again, brilliant, swarming with life, even though cloaked in flesh and substance. He had been overwhelmed as he entered, unprepared for the reality of it, and had scarcely been able to steel himself for Adama’s presence, an encounter that left him almost breathless and shaking. It was clear that the gift he had been given was no easy option, no shortcut to comprehension. He was like a blind man suddenly given sight and confronted by a crowded street. He could catch shapes, colours, if he concentrated, barely picking individual auras from the riot of impressions laid before him, but this was a skill he would have to mater, comprehend, not one that came full-blown and without cost.

"Corporal. Corporal!" Tigh’s voice cut into his confusion and drew his attention firmly to the figure in front of him.

"Sir?"

"Do I take it that you are tired, Corporal?"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

"M’m. Well, I’m not surprised. This is a good job, gentlemen. My thanks for your thoroughness, and my apologies for subjecting you to such labours. Now …" He looked at the two of them thoughtfully. "I seem to recall I made some mention of a furlon … Lieutenant?"

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Do you think Blue Squadron can manage without you for a secton?"

"Yes, sir! Ah - that is, I think so, sir."

"Good. Don’t look so worried, Corporal. I’ll clear matters with Captain Psion. As of …" he glanced at the Bridge chrono, "now, you are both officially on furlon." He turned away, turned back as they waited for their dismissal. "Go on," he growled in mock annoyance, "disappear!"

They went, Boomer grabbing hold of Komma’s arm and half-dragging him until he realised they were going. In the corridor the pilot collapsed against the wall and heaved a sigh of relief.

"I thought he was going to ask what took us so long! Are you okay?"

Komma nodded absently, still trying to comprehend the myriad overwhelming impressions that had assaulted him.

"Well …" Boomer wasn’t quite convinced by the assurance. "I don’t know about you, but I’m shattered. And as I’m on furlon, I’m going to go back to my quarters and collapse. I suggest you do the same."

"I will." Komma started to walk towards the turbolift, a preoccupied figure. Boomer levered himself away from the wall and caught up with him.

"Komma," he said thoughtfully, "it did happen, didn’t it? I mean, ever since we left the lower levels I’ve had this - this fear that maybe I just had a wild dream."

Komma drew to a halt, turning to study the warrior - the warrior and the colours that surrounded him, purple and blue.

"It happened. Believe me, it happened. But I know what you mean." He smiled, a tired smile, and impulsively Boomer reached out and hugged him.

"Take care of yourself, you hear?" The warrior’s tone was affectionate. "I’ll see you around. And Komma - thanks. For everything."

* * *

He was tired, but it was a comfortable tiredness. Boomer sauntered back to his off-duty quarters with a light step, at peace with himself and the world around him. The prospect of a whole secton’s furlon was cheering, even if he didn’t know what he was going to do with it. From bad beginnings, the day had turned out rather well, he thought. In fact, he thought as he stripped off his uniform and rolled into his bunk, he had to consider it as being one of the best days he had spent recently.

Sleep took him almost before he realised it. He drifted into pleasurable memories, and dreamed of Sensation.

* * *

Komma was never quite sure how he made it back to his quarters. He hadn’t been aware of his surroundings other than as a blur of sound and colour that finally resolved itself into his familiar living level. It could have been anywhere; even the familiar seemed strange, distant. He was tired, he realised, too tired, drained both physically and mentally, his sensed numbed by overload.

He keyed the door, stepped through, and let himself sink into the gravity gradient that welcomed him. His planet of origin, a small, high-gravity, mining colony, gave him justification for the privilege of private quarters where others of his rank were forced to share. He worked in the standard Colonial environment, but he slept in twice the gravity, a medical necessity to prevent highly-toned muscles degenerating into flab. He had never been more grateful for the exclusiveness of his cramped living space than he was now. With the closing of the door he excluded the rest of the ship, shut out the hammering impressions of humanity.

He slid to the corner of floor and wall and, lowering his head into his hands, he shook, a reaction to his exhaustion. He had experienced to the limit in the space of a few short centons, touched an ecstasy and an honesty that he had never imagined. Since that moment everything had seemed to spiral slowly away from him, until now he felt as though he had reached the bottom of a vast pit, isolated and alone.

With an effort he picked himself up and slumped towards his bunk, head aching and muscles protesting at the extra effort required. Within the net nothing had been an effort; he had returned to a body that ached from physical exercise. The thought of Boomer’s face as he realised the full implications of what he had done brought a smile to the technician’s lips. The memory of the pleasures of his body added a shiver of anxiety. What had been right and comfortable now seemed strange and incomprehensible; it was all just too much to cope with. He kicked off his boots, climbed onto the bunk and huddled into the corner of the wall. He knew he needed to sleep. He also knew that he would not be able to, that mental exhaustion had taken him beyond the ability to relax. The world of the net and the brilliant presence of its inhabitants seemed a lifetime away; unreachable, forever denied him.

It was the giggle that alerted him: a distant chime of orchestral bells, far away and yet very close. He looked up, stared at the centre of the room. Nothing. Then a hand, a soft, gentle hand, caressed his cheek - just an impression, a moment’s ghostly touch. Colour swirled in the corner of his vision, gold, silver, green, warm brown, brilliant red. The sense of their presence filled him, an embracing warmth in an empty room. He was not alone. He would never be alone, not while he moved within the confines of the ship, shared their world as they shared his.

_‘Once you have learned how, the pleasure of being is addictive. It is the moment that matters, since every moment is one and the same.’_

Savour’s words came back to him, and with them some of the understanding. He had been given a glimpse of the world as it should be, had touched some of his own potential, been gifted by a clearer perception, a greater sensibility. He could let it overwhelm him, or he could accept it, learn from it.

They were there and not there, ghosts at the corners of perception, sounds half-heard, touches barely felt. Their love filled him, surrounded him, the most tangible thing about them.

Slowly he relaxed, gave in to his exhaustion. Eventually he slept, to dream of the net, of life and love, and the ghosts in the machine …


End file.
